What Was Lost
by Dr. Pseudonym
Summary: Very AU. In the end, we always return to where it all started.


Disclaimer: I do own nothing; The Wheel of Time is the property of the Jordan family.

A/N: Not to be taken seriously. I just can't seem to get this idea out of my head. Hope you enjoy anyway. Also I have Beta. Any mistakes are my own.

* * *

What was lost: Chapter One.

At the last, so very long after, she was to return. As she had always known she would.

The cliff on which she stood ended in a jagged outcrop of rock before her, its sides falling away hundreds of yards to spray, mist and stone. She looked through the haze at those rolling grey green breakers battering the shore with their eternal envy. She watched the fury of the towering thunderheads that loomed on the horizon, their strength building as the artic winds hit the humid air of this battered and broken land. Leaning heavily on her staff she watched enthralled as the seagulls, and other ocean birds, drifted effortlessly on updrafts of air, their heads all that moved, searching the southern ocean below. As she had for so long, she felt the storm building inside her.

She brought her long, heavy, braid over her shoulder, its weight comforting. Grey mixed with strands of black, the colour of strong steel. Once, when she was too young to consider, it was something that she had longed for. The earning proved the fallacy of that dream. The Wheel always setting a price she was not willing to pay, and then taking it anyway. Her mouth twisted wryly causing the lines on her face to tighten. '_Little better than a babe in swaddling cloth and I had known all. Too ancient for the dawn of this new age and my ignorance burns me so.' _She had been a fool then and was doubly the fool now. Perhaps all that growing old really was is the knowing. '_It was as he said after he came back from the mountain. We are all fools if we live long enough._' The indecision in those eyes when he spoke, the doubt growing even after he had become something more at the very end, haunted her still.

She looked up as lightening flicked in the blue, black clouds. The wind had picked up, fluttering her yellow fringed shawl, perhaps the last of its kind, back over her shoulders. She took a deep breath, trying to taste the salt on the wind, trying to fill her lungs with its purity one last time.

When she heard the wheeze again, accompanied by the sharp pain and cough that doubled her over and left her clutching at her staff to remain upright, she knew the time was near. When her weakened limbs had recovered and the cloth in her hand came away from her mouth with clumps of dark blood, she knew the time was now. She spared a final glance out over a rolling ocean reflecting the lights dancing in the sky, then one behind her, to the place she had called home for these last few years.

A little boy stood two hundred yards away in the yellowed prairie grass watching her curiously. Watching her or the storm, she could not have said. His father worked the field near him, rounding up the last few strays before the weather hit. Behind them both a small village nestled in the hills, all which remained of the civilisation that had fought so desperately for. Fought and lost.

Before she turned away for the last time, perhaps been more perceptive than she had given him credit for, the boy stood ridged and raised his right hand. Arm straight, palm open, hair stolen by the wind, he stood still for a full half minute before taking a few steps backwards, turning and running to his father's call.

She watched as father and son made their way back through the wind swept grass to the village, the father caring the last of the lambs. She watched the boy sneak glances over his shoulder when he thought his father wasn't looking. She waited until they were almost out of sight before raising her own hand in farewell. When they vanished behind the first buildings the last strands of whatever had held her here disappeared.

She turned her back on the coming rain, billowing winds and churning clouds and faced north. North toward the storm, the storm that she had first felt months before. She reached for the power that came as easy as breathing, easier now, followed the old paths and travelled.

One hard, slow, laboured step took her north. North over the rough barren continent that she had lived on for a century or more, over the Sea of Storms, over the abandoned ruins of Illian, through what had once been named Altara, past Garen's wall and to a field outside the place she had first called home. She looked up from the soft green ground underfoot, to the clear blue sky above, the sun pleasantly past high noon, and felt the storm rage around her.

She closed her eyes and battled the fatigue that immediately assaulted her frail body. _Saidar_ taxed more heavily as the years past and youth fled. She sagged against her staff and only distantly felt the small pull.

When she felt the worst was past she wearyingly began the arduous walk toward the centre of town. Her pace slow and steady, aided by her staff, all she could manage in the afternoon sun. '_It is to end where it began, it seems._' After so long, the thought only brought hope. It was the other she could not stand, that had given nothing but fear for so long.

They had noticed her arrival, of course, those that lived in this place. Men had gone running, women grabbed their children and ushered them inside, horses already sped north and south. Once she had thought they would have been well beyond such things by now. Other, quicker, means of transport available. Ignorance's forgotten. War and tradition however, she had found, could hinder progress just as easily as aid it.

This place had been destroyed and rebuilt three times that she knew of. Indiscriminate wars had moved back and forth long after people had forgotten why it was important, why it was so important. The history books referred to that period as the wars of the final consolidation. Wars she had been slow to join, but had been one of the last standing at the bitter end.

She still remembered the day that Tar Valon burned.

The city and Dragonmount spewed forth ash in equal measure. The White Tower assaulted at the foundation. She had watched from high on the slopes as the Tower had leaned first one way then the other, its great stones groaning in protest. Once proud Aes Sedai cutting down those who rushed to defend it. Slowly at first, but with gathering momentum, it toppled. Tears had left trails through stained cheeks as she witnessed what should have been the impossibility of the White Tower crashing into the streets. Chunks of stone, some bigger than houses, flung from the rubble to cause more damage deeper in the city. The walls crumpled on the eastern side, three bridges fell into the river. Thousands died as the shockwave knocked her off her feet.

This place was bigger than it had ever been in her youth, many times larger, and named after the boy she had once known that had become so important to them, though she doubted even they remembered that. It was fitting in a small way. She had chased him through this place shouting his name more times than she could count. She could not always remember his face, on her good days it would come to her unbidden, or as had happened more in her later years she saw someone with a passing resemblance in a crowd, but she remembered that. That and the smile he could never hide when he was up to no good.

Whatever they named it now, she cared not. Four had left the village because of Winternight. She rode after them the next day to protect them, to keep them safe. The bitterness rose with the blood in the back of her throat. Her failure tormented her still. '_And now, at the last, the storm draws me to Emond's Field_' she thought, '_near five centuries after the last of the four died I will finally rest where the memory of them is strongest.' _

She walked the now deserted streets at a sedate pace. The sickness within her prevented anything more. It had started in her lungs and spread. She knew the signs of organ failure and had taken what she could to alleviate the pain. More could have done to extend what time she had but what were weeks compared to the centuries she had lived? Who was she to deny the Wheel its final work on her? And to what purpose? The voice from long ago taunted her then, but she pushed it away, harshly. She had been many things and could have been many more but now she was simply an old woman without the strength to carry on, walking to her end.

She passed houses built in the new fashion, fired brick held with mortar, houses with shutters drawn tight. In a few she spotted people peering out at her from upper stories. When they saw her watching they made the customary signs of warding in front of them. In two peeping children were jerked back harshly when she rounded a corner, followed seconds later by yelling. She heard babies crying and dogs barking. She passed abandoned food stalls and animals.

In one street the side of an Inn was on fire, two men were battling the small blaze with nothing but buckets of water, yet upon seeing her they ran back _into_ the burning building. She sighed as she drew water from the well and doused the flames. It was not their fault, she knew that now. The Empire had used its centuries well. The effort cost her again and slowed her even more. By the time she rounded the last corner and the village centre came into view her staff was the only thing keeping her on her feet.

She stopped short as she looked up at the oak that had been planted there, its seed a gift from the Ogeir. At one time sung to periodically, it towered above all else in the village. Her eyes followed the arch of its branches as they reached for the heavens and then the curve of its spine as it flowed to its massive base. Across what had once been the Village Green, a vibrant garden in full bloom.

Its paths were marked with small black pebbles from the river, a low white fence at its edges. Flowers in pinks, blues, yellows and reds reached for the sun in carefully designed patterns. Insects skimmed the garden beds, hoping from one flower to the next. As she watched a leaf from the great tree above fell lazily in the breeze, landing haphazardly in one of the few remaining grassed patches.

Saddened she started through the beautiful garden. And it was beautiful. But she remembered ribbons and dancing. She remembered music and laughter. She remembered fireworks and stories. She remembered joy and wonder. The people here, those that had once been her people, had no idea what they had lost.

The pebbles seemed to crunch with every step she took, her staff almost ringing each time it was planted. She kept to the winding paths as she made her way toward the centre. Someone had taken great care and spent many hours to create what she saw before her. She saw no purpose in upsetting what had been done. Now, at the end, she could still show a respect she knew would never be returned.

By the time she reached the grass that ringed the great tree each breath caused her pain. Each step her body resisted. Gasping for air, her arms shaking as they gripped the staff, she was slowed to a mere shuffle before, finally, her journey ended and she was able to lower herself to the ground, cradled among the roots and grass, her back resting against the great oak.

She held the staff against her body as she struggled to control her breathing, and then felt a small measure of surprise when she could not. She had known it would come, she had just not known how. She had seen it before. The one power strengthens, replenishes and prolongs the life of those connected to it, right up until the point it no longer can. That, and the combination of the oath rod's price, made the last decline of an aged Aes Sedai startlingly abrupt.

She knew it was not the end. But it was _her_ ending. '_Light please._' She had, at the last, completed the circle. The staff she carried was once carried by a much smaller woman, a woman clothed in blue, not yellow. A woman who had walked into this forgotten village saved them all. It was not for them she returned, it was for herself, the circle of her life. She was glad the storm had brought her here, to this end. She had left this place a closed minded fool, following after the one who wielded the staff. She returned the staff holder.

She lay against the grass, roots and leaves for some time, her last moments blessedly peaceful. As the pain in her chest and her laboured breathing turned into a deep gurgle that resonated through her frail body she let the world wash over her. She lay and felt the wind rush over her face and move through her hair. She watched as it moved the branches above her, creating a mosaic of the sun. The sunlight that did manage to stream to the ground shot through with ever changing patterns and colours. The sounds of the Winespring flowing from the outcrop rock to her right lolling her ever toward sleep.

When the edges of her vision began to fade, she almost welcomed it. A small smile lit her face as the world around her blurred, the sounds of the Winespring fading, even the shouts of men and the sudden feeling of a woman channelling nearby diminished to nothing. She let them go. The storm faltered.

To the left her house had stood, boarding the Green. And as she looked it stood there now, blurry at first like everything else, but quickly becoming sharper. Small, its thatched roof lower to the ground then her memory suggested, but still as solid. Shutters open, wooden walls oddly decorated for the winter. As she watched the village changed around her. And she had to laugh. There had been nothing to fear.

In moments the village of old surrounded her, the village of her most prized memories. Small, honest houses of the people she had loved. All decorated for Bel Tine and Winternight. The Winespring Inn stood behind her once more, the smell of honey cakes wafting out over the Green causing her stomach to rumble. On the edge of the Green men and woman sat in circles around bonfires, laughing as they talked. Husbands held wives close, sharing meals. Closer to the Winespring Inn children sat in rapt attention as a gleeman with a white beard spun a tale of giants, princes and princesses. She heard a dull thud and the children clapped and shrieked as the fireworks lit up the sky.

She turned as a familiar voice shouted her name, a voice she had not heard in over five centuries. Her heart clenched in her chest, a chest that no longer held any pain, as she watch a laughing Egwene run toward her. An Egwene of no more than fifteen years. Her new braid swinging as she moved.

"Nynaeve," she cried as she moved in close, throwing both arms around her, "where have you been? I thought you would never make it. And why are you standing by yourself near the Spring Pole?"

She had no answer. She turned to where the oak had been and instead finding the ten foot trunk of the Fur tree, wrap in white ribbons. Her tears came then, she could not have held them back if she tried. "Oh, Egwene..."

The young girls face turned serious for a moment as she reached up and wiped at her cheeks. "There is no need for that," she whispered. To her right the music started and Egwene's face broke into a grin of unsuppressed joy. "Come on, Nynaeve. It's time for the dance. It is my first time; I need you to show me how. Besides," she giggled as she brought their faces together they looked through the crowd. There across the length of the Green, sitting beside a fire with a young red haired boy, sat a man with eyes of blue and a face of plans and angles. "I think he has been waiting for you to dance almost as long as I." With that she laughed and sped away, only pausing to shout over her shoulder for Nynaeve to hurry.

She started forwarded almost immediately not surprised at all by strength in her limbs after so long without. She smiled as she moved, not after Egwene, not just yet, but straight toward far bonfire and the only man she had ever loved. She had taken a few steps and was on the point of running when she felt an arm weave its way around hers and a woman walking at her side.

She turned as the woman spoke, her voice soft and remorseful. "You love them all deeply don't you?"

She was an older lady in her middle years, grey in her hair, her brow furrowed. Nynaeve had not noticed her before. She was on the point of simply excusing herself and going to see Lan when she spoke again. "I am sorry, so very sorry. But we need to discuss the storm."

"Storm?" Nynaeve replied absently. Lan had seen her, he was standing. She glanced at the sky and could see every star. She smiled. "The night is clear. We will not need to worry about storms. For now my husband waits, I will be happy to talk later…" She frowned in confusion. "I am sorry but I cannot place your name."

"I am called Nakomi." Nynaeve froze as that name rang through her. It meant something that name and sparked memories. "And we need to discuss the storm that brought you to Emond's Field, where your body lies still, on the brink of death."

Her reply was long in coming, the memoires resisting. "Aviendha spoke of a woman named Nakomi, once long ago. The one she met in the waste, on the way to Rhuidean." She didn't even look at the other woman when she nodded, instead she watched the far bonfire. Rand and Lan were both standing now, watching her approach. Rand was saying something into her husband's ear. A stab of fear sliced to her core as she remembered. '_This ...this woman had known things that no one could have known, no one should have known. She had guided, changed what was to be._' She turned on her, her voice strained. "Why? Why would you do this? Why would you come here, to my peace? Whatever your storm means, I cannot help."

Nakomi smiled sadly. "You never realised what they were did you? The storms you felt?"

She frowned, thrown by the question. "They were a warning of danger building, a threat to something important." She felt frustration mounting along with her growing anxiety. A memory came then, a woman with short hair and the words spoken on her death bed. '_Light, please no. Just this once, please._' Here and now it could no longer matter. There could no longer be a choice.

"Yes that is part of it." She paused and gestured to those all around. "You are connected to those you love Nynaeve, connected to their threads. What you sense, what you feel as unseen storms on the horizon is related to the ability some people have of reading the pattern. Unconsciously you can sense a threat approaching those you love. It is not my storm, Aes Sedai, it is _your_ storm."

"Then you, it, must be mistaken. They have before." She said firmly, resisting the urge to grip her braid. She had not stopped moving since the woman had intertwined arms and taken her hand yet she felt the distance to Lan slowly increasing. "There is no one remaining in Emond's Field that I care for."

"That is true, now it holds little resemblance to the place you once lived." A small smile tugged at the edge of her mouth. Nynaeve felt her heart rate quicken. She shot a desperate glance at Lan. He had begun to move toward her, his face serious. "But then, why the storm?"

This time she did grab her braid as she panicked. "I told you, it must be mistak-"

She was cut off as the other woman pulled her arm in the opposite direction. "Walk with me. I have something to show you." Before she could protest Nakomi took a step and the world around them changed.

Gone was the Green and the Spring Pole. Gone was her home, the Winespring Inn. Gone the village and the people she knew. Instead she stood in a rolling field of knee high grass. It was the same place, the outcrop of rock that produced the Winespring River gushed behind her, but no foundation stone had ever been laid in the ground upon which she stood.

Her eyes followed the river as it meandered east toward the Waterwood. In the distance fences stood, outlining the edges of paddocks. The sky overhead rolled with thick black clouds. Though no rain fell each step caused her feet to sink into the earth. Already the water had soaked through her boots, the lower half of her dress damp as it brushed against the long grass.

"No. Take me back. Take me back to the Green." Her voice was desperate even to her own ears. For the first time in a _very_ long time, she was not in control.

"You must see first, you must understand. Then if you still wish it I will take you back. I swear by the Light." Nakomi rubbed her arm reassuringly as she spoke

"I do not want to see. I never have." She pleaded.

"You must." Was all the reply she was given.

Nynaeve's heart clenched tightly in her chest as she was guided to a small rise where the Inn stood moments before. From that vantage she could clearly see the small road running east to west. She could see the earth churned to mud and water collecting in puddles. From the state of the road hundreds had moved along it, and recently. She paid all that scant attention however, for sprawled face down in the road mere yards away, a woman was dying.

She wore a fashion she did not recognise. The blue dress embroidered with gold was thin at the waist, flared around the hips, tight up her back and down the arms yet the stiff collar was extend from the tips of her shoulders and reached almost as high as where she bound the back of her dark hair in a tight bun, the long fringe falling into the mud. Blood pooled from the corner of her mouth and stained the two ripped sections in her side. Her yet to be ageless face contorted in pain and terror, their approach unnoticed. In shock Nynaeve witnessed the impossibility of watching herself die on the road before them.

Nakomi spoke, her voice gentle. "It is her storm you felt, which in a way makes it yours. With her death, that which she cares most about will perish. It is believed this world will not survive the coming darkness without her." Nynaeve only gaped at her before trying to untangle her arms and move forward, only to be roughly pulled back. "No, you cannot heal her. Even if you could, in this world a battle rages around us. She is both here and there. She would be cut down again before she could even make the river."

"How…" she began, stumbling, before trying again. "This world? How? How is this possible? How could I feel this? She is so young. Light why are you showing me this?" Dread filled her as the beginnings of an answer came, one she had spent centuries refusing to even contemplate.

"Those questions." She grimaced. "To answer them would take time I do not have. To answer them fully would take _months_." She tossed her head and pulled her closer. "I will explain what I can. You know of the portal stones. You know of the mirror worlds. You know the Ogier opened their Book of Translation and left your home." She indicated that she did and the other woman continued. "The Wheel also allows for many different…_permutations_…of itself, complex beyond even my understanding. All equally real. All equally important. If you know the way, you can find them. In this Wheel the end of the Third Age has only just begun, and you are a young woman still."

"And the storm?" she demanded. "How could I feel her storm? And if she is so important why do you not help her?"

"You feel it because of the very nature of your gift. It allows you to sense how the threads might be woven, and it warns you if those you care for are impacted." She gestured around them. "Once, this was a possibility in your life. Certain events happened here in the distant past that did not happen in your world, causing you to never live this moment. You feel it still, the echo of what may have been combining with the event playing out elsewhere." She paused. "It was the confusion from people with your ability that first led channellers to discover the existence of the other permutations. And I have helped her," she continued softly, "I brought you."

Nynaeve took an involuntary step backwards. "Me?" she said almost uselessly. Min's words from so long ago flashed through her mind and for the first time she saw how it could be so. '_Oh light._' She continued anyway. "My time has passed. You said I could not heal her. How can I help her?"

Nakomi turned to face her. Her voice seemed to resonate. "The …_history_… that occurred in this variation of the Wheel… its rarity, have led to it been favoured. It is to be aided, as yours was, so it can be preserved. If I healed her now it is as I said, she would not make the river." She looked her in the eye. "But if _you_ were to take her place, you would not need to make the river. You could save yourself and, perhaps in time, help keep this world from the Shadow."

Nynaeve was finally able to free herself of the other woman's clutches as she backed away further, shaking her head as her mind whirled. "She cannot possibly want me to ta-"

Nakomi stepped forward for every step she took backwards. She cut in. "She has already agreed. I spoke to her before I came to you. She knows that without you, no matter what I do, she dies. If you take her place, she knows you can save what she values above all else."

"And what is that?" she asked as she took another step. '_I need to think. I cannot possibly do this..._'her thoughts paused. '_Light, if she lives than that could mean he does to. That could mean Lan is fighting in that battle as we speak._'

The other woman must have seen something in her eyes because she shook her head sadly. "No. I will not lie to you, though this would have been many times easier if it were not the truth. Their paths never crossed as he fought his private war with the Shadow." She sighed. "Nor can I answer your question. What I can say is that many that you do love are in grave danger in this world and more that you will come to."

"My husband..."

"Will be waiting. He will always wait for you, whether you return to him now or later."

And there it was, just as Min had predicted. She took another step back and was surprised when her foot sunk further than before. She looked down to find she had made it to the road, her leg was enveloped in mud a third of the way to her knee. Half a yard further and she would have stepped on the broken woman in blue and gold. "I have a choice?"

She smiled gently. "There is always a choice Nynaeve. That's the whole point of the Wheel, of the permutations. Some choices are just harder to make then others."

She opened her mouth to respond, opened her mouth to say she had seen too much, been through too much. That she could not do it all over again. Could not helplessly watch loved ones die time and again. Could not fight the Seanchan, could not face down the Forsaken a second time. Could not again handle the tragedies and horrors. That she had fought her wars already. That she was too old and just wanted to spend some time in peace with her husband when she felt it.

She looked down at her calf where the cold, wet, muddy hand now gripped her, looked at the shaking fingers and the rings that encircled them. She followed the arm back along the blue and gold dress and met the eyes of the dying woman. Her own eyes stared at her with such intensity that she gasped. She could read them as she would her own. She saw the fear flowing there. Saw the pain at the edges. But mostly she saw the accusation in those eyes, saw the anger and determination.

Her own voice spoke to her, low and strained. "Please." A shudder ran through her and when she spoke again her voice was desperate. "Please, she calls…she calls so softly now. Please you must help us. You must."

Nynaeve looked away at those words, unable to bare the sight anymore, unable to witness her own weakness contrasting with the others determination. Words came to her from Lan, words often spoken, but rarely meant. Of duties heavier than mountains. Of a death lighter than a feather. She thought of them, back in her village, waiting. And she remembered what Min had once said, she could choose, but there would be no real choice at all.

She turned back again and looked at the woman in blue and gold through her tears only to see her smiling up at her, despite her pain. She already knew, she had read something in her face. She mouthed her thanks as the grip on her leg loosened and then fell away, slipping once more from this place. "Do it." She turned and glared. "The Light burn you! Do it now."

Nakomi nodded. "You must fight to preserve what was lost, Nynaeve. That is the key. Walk the High Steps. Preserve what was lost."

She didn't bother to respond, her vision was already disappearing and her body felt as if it was lurching. '_Light please help me. Lan please forgive me._'

At the last, so very long after, she was to return. As she had always known she would.

Just not to where she had expected.

* * *

In another world, in another time and place, Nynaeve al'Meara, clothed in blue and gold, opened her eyes amidst the sounds of men fighting, men screaming and men dying. She drew a shuddering breath into her ice cold body as she lifted her head out of the mud and tried to locate the crying child.

A/N: I hope it was understandable and enjoyable. Until next time.


End file.
